John Adams said he learned that the Metropolitan Opera was scrapping plans to transmit his opera The Death of Klinghoffer to movie theaters around the world when the Mets general manager, Peter Gelb, told him on Sunday by telephone that he had gotten unimaginable pressure from some Jewish groups that oppose the work.

I asked Peter if, before summarily canceling this, he would open it up to some kind of a public dialogue, Mr. Adams recalled on Tuesday, in his first interview since the Met announced that it was dropping the opera, scheduled to appear this fall on its popular Live in HD cinema program. He said that he felt that by canceling the telecast, he could save the stage production, Mr. Adams said.

The opera  which tells of the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists, and the murder of a Jewish passenger, Leon Klinghoffer  has met with controversy since it was first performed in 1991.

A campaign by Jewish groups that wanted the Met to cancel the production heated up recently. Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, discussed the matter with Mr. Gelb, who agreed to cancel the movie transmission, but not the performances.

If it (the opera) walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and sings like a duck, it’s a duck. An anti-semitic opera using moral equivalency to portray the terrorists as having as just a cause as poor Mr. Klinghoffer in his wheelchair. Does not compute.

During the “Great Cultural Revolution” in Mao’s China, there were still operas and ballets composed and performed, but they were stupid propaganda pieces with titles like “The Peasants’ Victory Over the Evil Landlords”. Costumes and sets were replete with Mao Jackets and Stalinist Imagery, and the music was forgettable. Art became the slave of the state, and free expression was crushed.

The Visual Arts in Stalin’s Russia were completely taken over to produce a comical era of dumpy architecture, laughable posters and stupendously ugly statues.

Art in service to the state is stifling. The Met should be ashamed that they are buying into the lies of the left and calling it “Art”.

Just the humble opinion of a musician and opera fan.

7
posted on 06/20/2014 5:31:37 AM PDT
by left that other site
(You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)

I am appalled at some of the Jew baiting that is taking place on some websites devoted to opera, ever since the Met announcement that the HD broadcast (but not the in-house performances) would be cancelled.

The callousness and cruelty displayed towards Jewish groups who protested against this opera, especially the mockery of the Klinghoffer children, whose father was so brutally murdered, reminds me of some medieval hate-fest.

What is sort of strange is that this opera has been placed in its own Category (Category D) in the Met ticket brochure, with ticket prices lower than prices for any other opera they are putting on. Also, the donors who financed all the other productions are listed by name, but the donor who financed the Klinghoffer opera has asked to remain “anonymous.”

I'm waiting for the Met to stage an opera based on journalist Nick Berg's beheading in Iraq by Islamic terrorists.

After all, in operatic drama, what difference is there between being killed by beheading or being shoved over the side of a huge ship? One death is just as dramatic as the other, right?

But I doubt if we'll ever see an opera based on Berg's tragic fate.

Furthermore, I'll bet that the Met will NEVER mount an opera based on the Crusades which pitted Christians against Muslims. There are several Crusades-based operas, including one by Verdi, in which the Muslims are the bad guys.

All this boils down to one thing, the Met will never offend today's Muslim sensibilities in their musical offerings, only those of Christians or Jews.

11
posted on 06/20/2014 6:25:06 AM PDT
by MinuteGal
(Monster BHO uses illegal children for political agenda while accusing Right of doing same.)

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